Electronic Mail ▪ Looking at Desks
> Looking at Desks
Call me weird but I like looking at people's desks. Either in real life at offices or from pictures online. A desk says a lot about a person: how much they value materials, what products they like, if they are organized etc. I'm always on the look-out for new gear on other people's desks that can improve my workflow. Especially small little tools that do one thing very well. Subreddits like /r/macsetups, /r/battlestations or even /uses/ pages on other people's websites are good places to start looking for inspiration for your own workspace.
Talking about desks, that's also a good reminder to step away from your desk from time to time. If you're always in it, you can't get out of it. Move away to think and approach something from a different angle. You don't come up with a solution by brute-forcing a problem and staying in the same location.
That brings me back to my original point, looking at desks. By being on the look-out for new gear you try out new things and move stuff around which changes the environment you are in. That slight change in environment might give you a new insight on a problem you are currently working on.
Project
I've been recording a ton of instructional videos for students. So I'm building a small studio at our university for other instructors to create videos. But I'm also investing a bit in my office set-up to create better screencasts.
Videography is something I know little about so it's fun tinkering with all this gear and figuring out lighting, audio, focus, and that shenanigans. I'm exploring an area I know little about and I like that. Dipping my toes into the water and exploring, that's how I learn.
With all that video creating I took a leap of faith and also started a Youtube channel. I have no idea what I'm going to upload and how frequent but you should totally subscribe.
Links
- The web’s evolution over the last decade has mirrored the American economy. Tom MacWright thinks it time to reinvent the web and writes about his proposed change in Clean Starts for the Web.
- An article in the same realm as the previous one: in What is the Small web? Aran Balkan writes about 'the big web' and owning your own 'home' on the web.
- Do you ever have this thought: "It's too late"? Too late to start something? Too late to learn something? It's called Time Anxiety and Anne-Laure Le Cunff wrote this good article about the concept.
More to click
Learning
Digging more into Processing (see latest newsletter) and started reading the Processing tutorials from Happy Coding and watching The Nature of Code by Daniel Shiffman. The Nature of Code talks more about 'abstract' processing concepts than practical P5.js examples and I find it very fascinating.
Media diet
↪ Playing: Still spending a lot of time Sim Racing but I've also been playing a couple of matches of Fall Guys which is fun to play for a couple of games and zero out and play without thinking.
↪ Reading: Started reading Start with the Why by Simon Sinek. I'm on the first couple of pages so no real opinions, need to read more to give you a full review.
↪ Watching: Went on a 'Netflix documentary' spree. I was recommended a couple of geeky ones so decided to watch them over the weekend. High Score is a miniseries about classic video games, The Speed Cubers is a documentary about Rubik's Cube champions, and The Social Dilemma is a documentary about the dangers of Social Media (which stars Tristan Harris).
That's it for this new(s)letter. See you in the next one! 👋